Anyone who has lived even a short amount of time in a large and densely populated metropolitan area, such as Houston, Texas, has witnessed emergency vehicles caught in traffic jams on clogged freeways or seen such vehicles slow to a snail's pace in crossing intersections for fear that the intersecting motorists may not have heard the sirens over the din of car radios. Survival, health, safety, and security are fundamental concerns shared by nearly the entire global population. Therefore, all who sit in these traffic jams, bemoaning the plight of the ambulance drivers who futilely attempts to have the sea of cars part before them, reflect on their fortune in not being the victim who may be riding in the back of the ambulance or who may not be reached in time.
When an incident occurs and first responders (fire department, police, Emergency Medical Services (EMS)) are dispatched to the scene of the incident, the responders often only have a street address or a general location of the incident. If they are familiar with the area, they may recognize the address; or the dispatcher may be able to provide them with additional information via radio while they are en route. In general, however, first, second or third waves of responders are unlikely to have additional information about the locale (e.g., the urban setting, building and structures, access and lanes), best routes into and out of an area under current conditions (e.g., flooding of low sections of roads), and potential obstacles to traffic (e.g., railroad crossings, roads likely to be jammed at certain times).
Lack of knowledge of the preferred routes under current conditions results in significant loss of critical time and higher risk to the responders en route. These factors can result in response delays and loss of life and property that could be avoided if responders had access to optimal and protected routes to and from emergency situations. This is especially true in medical emergencies. The value of transporting a seriously injured victim to a trauma center as soon as possible is well understood and being able to accomplish this within the “Golden Hour” is a critical factor in survivability.
The Golden Hour is a term used in emergency medicine and refers to the first sixty minutes after an accident or the onset of acute illness. The victim's chances of survival are greatest if he or she can be transported to a hospital within the Golden Hour.
The “Golden Hour” concept comes from the U.S. military experience, especially in the Vietnam War. The fact is that in the case of a severe trauma, nothing can replace surgery (especially in case of an internal bleeding); it is therefore necessary to transport the victim as fast as possible to a trauma center.
Emergency response units can be slowed down by the driver's lack of familiarity with the location, traffic patterns on the way, temporary roadwork, or blocked railroad crossings. Time lost in reaching the site of an incident works against the responders' objective to mount an appropriate response. Time lost in evacuating victims reduces their chances of survival or recovery. In some cases, responding units may be put temporarily out of service or lost due to events such as traffic accidents or flooded roads, resulting in damaged assets, injured personnel, and the inability to respond to an incident.
Thus, it is desirable to supply responders with accurate information of the best possible access and evacuation routes in real time, to have the capability to dynamically redesign and implement such routes to account for the consequences of developing situations, and to have the capability to implement and to protect these routes by controlling traffic control devices to maximize responders' speed and safety and victims' chances of survival.
Furthermore, all parties who can contribute by making a response to an incident must have access to as much information specific to the event as possible and be able to contribute information and their expertise in a timely manner. Today, there is no unified method for capturing, organizing, updating and disseminating the information concerning an incident in a manner by which the information may be useful to emergency response personnel in selecting and managing routes to and from emergency incident locations.
While the past three decades have seen tremendous advances in relevant information technology, such as the widespread deployment of the commercial Internet, availability of portable and wireless devices, and the collection of a vast amount of information, these technologies and information have not been efficiently harnessed to provide better and safer ingress and egress routes for emergency response vehicles. It would be desirable to use these capabilities to provide crisis managers, first responders, and support organizations with incident-specific information (historical, calendar-based, and real-time information) anytime, anywhere, so as to afford response vehicles better and safer access and evacuation routes to and from emergency incident locations.
From the foregoing it will be apparent that there is still a need for an improved method to provide information in regard to road networks, road conditions, and traffic patterns to crisis managers, first responders, and their support organizations, and to make use of the control capabilities for traffic control devices so as to provide responders to emergency events efficient routes to and from incident locations.